


i stayed there dust collected on my pinned up hair

by youareinlove713



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28613568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareinlove713/pseuds/youareinlove713
Summary: Just a bunch of seemingly small moments (most canon) where JJ's not moving on from Spencer Reid because she's stuck right where he left her in that football stadium.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Spencer Reid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	i stayed there dust collected on my pinned up hair

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea from Taylor's song "right where you left me" (a bonus track on evermore-- that's now on streaming services!!)
> 
> Obviously JJ isn't sitting in a restaurant, but I think she's metaphorically stuck in the moment she realized she messed up what was meant to be a date between her and Spence. 
> 
> So, this is just a collection of mostly canon moments proving that with one bonus moment that references something off the s7 DVD that I've decided is canon because it fits my narrative of them being in love the entire series.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!!

It’s nearly midnight and logic tells her she should head inside, but the porch light is on and she’s trying to figure out how she missed it. 

He was so nervous, tripping over his words when he asked her. 

It’s so obvious now. 

But he said Gideon gave him the tickets and it threw her off. 

If only she’d known.

* * *

“You can’t find Reid?” she asks Emily. 

She’s sitting down, but she feels like she’s falling. 

And still she doesn’t figure it out.

It takes many hours later and seeing him beaten and bruised on a computer screen to realize why it feels like she hasn’t breathed in almost six hours. 

She’s in love with him.

So why she doesn’t say the words repeating in her mind when she throws her arms around him? She’ll never know.

* * *

She sits at the bar, trying to work the case with this detective when suddenly she’s being asked why she’s not married. 

And the answer sits on the tip of her tongue, heavy as a 18-wheeler truck driving right toward you. 

Spencer Reid. 

Yet, when the case ends she offers Will her phone number. 

She doesn’t know why she does it, she just does. 

* * *

“Marry me.” 

Will’s southern accent fills her ears, but the only one who comes to mind when she thinks about marriage is her best friend: Spence.

“I need time,” she tells him and hangs up.

* * *

They’re standing in a hotel lobby in New York City when he traps her with his words. 

She turns, forcing a smile. 

She should be happy, but Spencer’s right there and he deserves better than to find out like this. 

“I’m pregnant.” 

She watches his face drop and despite Emily’s happy “Congratulations” JJ hears Reid’s heart shattering slowly as he processes. 

She should’ve just told him how she felt. 

Then this could’ve been his baby she was carrying, and his face would look much different right now.

“I’ve asked JJ to marry me.” Will adds. 

She’s gonna kill him. 

* * *

Will takes everyone out of the room leaving her and Spencer alone with Henry tucked away in her arms and a question she’s honestly dreading asking. 

But she forces it out anyway, keeping her eyes on Henry for as long as possible as she lies about her and Will both wanting it. 

“We want you to be Henry’s godfather.” 

He looks dumbfounded and to be working through unresolved feelings as he answers. “I don’t even know-- I don’t know--” 

She asks if he wants to hold the baby in question, practically forcing him into Reid’s arms just to end the most awkward moment in her entire life. 

And then she watches him greet Henry softly, and she sees how perfect Henry looks in his arms. 

Oh, god how she wishes that Henry was theirs. That he could raise him with her and she’d have moments like this all the time. 

* * *

It’s when she’s watching the tapes of her friends wishing her and Will well in marriage that she really hates herself. 

He’s so drunk and he’s lying. 

He’s lying right through his teeth. 

He’s risking his sobriety, she realizes. 

Yet somehow Will misses it and just laughs it off. 

Spencer Reid is in _love_ with her. 

It's everything she wanted, but not like this. 

Because now she's committed herself to Will, and she's not going to leave him, but god, does she hear the devil singing in her ear and it sounds absolutely wonderful.

* * *

They’re in a thrift store and she’s looking at something straight out of Reid’s closet when Morgan tells her. 

“What? Why wouldn’t he tell us?” 

Spencer? A girlfriend?

But….he’s supposed to be in love with her?

More importantly why is she so bothered by this? She’s married to Will and she’s happy! 

The ghostly sight of his face at the Redskin's game plays in the back of her head. 

Maybe a part of her wants him to be stuck there with her.

* * *

She sits with the other visitors, waiting. 

And then she sees him. 

He’s wearing denim and a white tee and he looks like he hasn’t gotten any sleep for weeks. 

She hates it. 

He looks so unlike himself and she can see it in his eyes. He’s going to lose himself in here. 

God, how she just wants to reach through the glass and hold him and tell him everything’s going to be okay. 

Or better yet, bring him home and show him a million reasons to make up for all the times she couldn’t say it before. 

But he has no idea. 

Because she’s kept that secret so well. 

But seeing him like this, seeing his protective bordering on jealous side in action? It’s tempting her to tell him.

* * *

Why is Spencer always the one kidnapped? She wonders, standing in the bathroom when Emily comes over. 

And so, she distracts herself from thinking the worst by telling Emily about the date gone awry. 

“Poor Spence. He didn’t know what to do,” she pauses, remembering the weeks after, “I’m just glad he forgave me.” 

“He adores you,” Prentiss says.

You have no idea. 

“And it sounds like that was the beginning of something even better. The three of you have been inseparable since I met you.”

That’s true. Which is why “I don’t know how to do this without them. If, uh, we can’t get them back…” Yes, she is threatening to leave the B.A.U. right now. 

That’s how big of a reason Reid is why she’s still here. 

Reid and Penelope both, but Spencer more so. 

Not that she would ever admit that out loud.

* * *

With a gun pointed at her she’s forced to finally tell him. 

“I’ve always loved you,” she confesses, tears burn her lash line.

She meets his eyes, finding hope at the forefront, behind it is the pain.

“And I was just too scared to say it before, and now things are just really too complicated to say it now,” she explains and she’s not sure who it’s for. The man pointing a gun at her, herself or Spencer. 

“I’m sorry, but you should know.” 

He gives her the kind of look that will haunt her every nightmare and every waking moment and she’s thrown right back to the moment she realized the Redskin’s game was meant to be a date. 

* * *

She and Garcia squeeze past a few people on their way to meet Reid.

“Hey,” she greets, “Popcorn?” 

He looks over, smiling and then he sees Penelope sitting down next to JJ. 

His grin falls into something bitter and JJ doesn’t need to be a profiler to realize her mistake. 

But it’s too late. 

They watch the game, but the whole time JJ feels no joy.

“Spence, please…” she tries when Pen heads off to the bathroom after the game.

He walks away, repeating that “It’s okay”, but she can tell it’s not.

She drives Garcia home and then pulls into her driveway. 

She gets out, but can’t find it in herself to go inside. 

So, she sits on the steps outside in a thin jacket despite the fact she can see her own breath. 

She doesn’t deserve to feel the warmth of her covers or fireplace right now.

* * *

He’s wearing an over sized sweatshirt and a grin. 

“But what did you do on a Saturday to get you into it?” She asks. 

“Just, uh, I had a conversation.”

“Oh, a conversation,” she pauses, trying to keep her jealousy in check,“Well, whoever this conversation was with just put a smile on your face I haven't seen in a really long time.”

She sends him off after the person who made him this happy, but she feels something inside of her dying.

Hope.

He’s moving on. 

He's aware she’s in love with him, and still he's moving on.

And she should’ve moved on fourteen years ago when she got involved with Will, collected some perspective or something, but she’s been stuck in that moment ever since. 

The one where he stared at her in the stands, his broken heart worn on his face, crowds cheering all around them.

The dying hope was louder than anything else that night.

It crept under her skin and settled itself deep in her bones, and every time she moves-- especially to look at Will or kiss him, she feels it all over again. 

Spencer Reid was her first love and she fucked it all up before their love had a chance to even take flight.


End file.
